‘Art’ can be a loaded term. It can intimidate and isolate people unintentionally, losing guests before the party begins. But it doesn’t have to be this way! The art world has expanded to embrace alternative paths that creativity chose to travel down, and commercial art has rightfully secured a stake in these roads.
The Look See Exhibition began humbly as a creative component to the LOOK HEAR talks at Newcastle pub The View Factory back in 2010. Initially, LS exhibited contributed artworks from Newcastle Uni students (a total of 18 artworks from 10 students). The following year we continued to invite Novacastrians, though we also invited some notable names to be exhibited alongside contributed artworks. This developed the structure for future shows: established artists with artworks that were recognised by the creative community would headline the show, but emerging artists would also have the opportunity to exhibit alongside them. This would effectively bring a larger audience and expose them to these creative people who had yet to develop a following.

This year, the LS Exhibition decided to use a movie theme and encouraged artists to design creative works inspired by cinema. The contributions were amazing - ranging from fine art through to fashion, digital pieces, and sculpture. Featured artists included celebrated artists from Australia (Ken Taylor, Bec Winnel, WBYK, Luke Lucas) and international artists (Tyler Stout, Akiko Stehrenberger, Paul Blow). Opening night saw all ages witness an exhibition like no other they’d seen: art that was funny, clever, witty, and cool. Ostracising no one and embracing everyone. We love to look at beautiful works and admire the skills of the craftspeople, and I believe this to be a common human thread. Appreciation of aesthetic doesn’t need to be taught – but it does need to be exercised.